The “Please read my trip report about our day trip to Busch Gardens Williamsburg” Trip Report - UPDATED 5/30 About This Page:

[TheThomasFam]

I’m not sure if this trip report will entertain anyone but I thought since I have never written a trip report I would give it a chance and this one was easy cause it was a one day trip. I would like to give all those people whose trip reports I have read thanks for inspiring me to write this one.

(A side note before I start – I do have pictures but they are on my Dad’s digital camera. He apparently is not in any hurry to take them off his camera so as soon as he does, I will include them in the trip report)

Cast of Characters:

Kim (Spokesperson for thethomasfam)
Jackson (DS)
Kerry (DD)
Bobby (Dad/Poppy)
Margie (Mom/Grammy)

DH, Jon, could not go with us this trip – had to work.

Our trip:

Busch Gardens, Europe – May 27th, 2008

A little Background:

Jon and I are originally from Virginia – Suffolk and Chespeake, respectively. Williamsburg is about one hour from both our hometowns. We probably both went to Busch Gardens at least once a year when we were kids. When we started dating, we bought Season Passes one summer. So going to Busch Gardens is a pretty normal thing. We started taking the kids when Jackson was 3 and Kerry was 6 months old. We went last September and the kids had a blast. So taking them back before school got out for the summer in Virginia was a no-brainer – Park wouldn’t be so crowded.

Now that Jackson was 5 years old and had passed the 42 inches tall mark, I did some research on the BG website to see what he could ride. Thus, Goal Number One: Get Jackson on some big kid rides. I wanted to prepare him for the types of rides that he would be able to ride on at WDW. I was pretty excited that he would be tall enough to ride things other than the kiddie rides.

My Goal Number Two was to see if I could last toting a backpack all day on my back! Obviously I don’t do that on a regular basis so I wanted to see if it would be a problem for me. Inside my backpack were two towels, Kerry’s bathing suit (BG has a wet area for the kids – Jackson wore his bathing suit), change of clothes for Kerry, change of clothes for Jackson, Pull-Ups for Kerry (Successful Potty – Training is also another goal for me but we can discuss that another time) and purse stuff.

For those who have never been to Busch Gardens, it’s broken down by different countries; England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, and Italy. Each country has it’s own rides, food, and shopping. There is also a kids play area called Land of the Dragons located in Germany.

Our day begins . . .

So Busch Gardens opens at 10am so we wanted to be there as soon as opening time as we could. We left my parent’s house around 8:30 and after stopping at the bank, were on our way. Since we were expecting some morning traffic, we were surprised that there wasn’t and we arrived in the BG preferred parking at 9:30 (Preferred parking means instead of $10, its $20 and we get to park right by the entrance – which we did!)

I hand out everybody’s tickets while we walk past the ticket booth and enter the park (stopping to have my backpack searched of course)
When we enter the park, the Team Member (There called Team Members here – TM) asks us to stand together so he can get our pic. Before I could say okay – I wanted to purchase one of the kids – my dad goes “No thanks” and shuffles us in the other direction. While I wasn’t real happy with that, I didn’t say anything because I knew there would be other pics throughout BG.

We walked over to the TM who measures the kid’s heights and gives them bracelets based on their height.

As I looked at the map and the show schedule, I saw that they were playing a show called “Pirates 4-D” starring Leslie Nielson and Eric Idle. So I thought to myself, “Pirates 4-D - just like Muppets show at Hollywood Studios. Let’s see what happens.” I look at the first showing: 10am. I look at my watch: 9:50am and we are right across from the theatre (The Globe Theatre, to be more exact). So I suggest to the kids and my parents “Lets go see the Pirates show.” Everyone is in agreement so we go into the Globe Theatre, get our 4-D glasses and sit down.

As the show starts, Jackson starts to get this skeptical look on his face. The first thing starts coming at us, a cannon and it fires the cannonball. Kerry jumps up and goes to sit in my mom’s lap. As the film progresses, she goes from her lap, to my lap, to my Dad’s lap, and back to my lap. Then the turning point of the film happens (At least for the kids anyway). On of the pirates has a bee hive land on his head and the bees fly out. Well being a 4-D movie, the bees come out at us. Kerry, sitting in my lap, proceeds to throw her legs up in the air and starts to kick the 4-D bees off of her. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard. Without missing a beat, Jackson turns to me and says “I’m outta here Mommy”, grabs my Dad and proceeds to leave the theatre, Kerry in tow. My mom and I stayed and watched the rest of the show. I thought to myself “ Oh well, I’ll watch the Muppets movie by myself.”

Up next -
Moving right along . . .

[RobDVC]

Great start to your report Kim.
The reactions to the film by your kids is funny.

[Colexis Mom]

Great start I guess I wouldn't be brining the kids to the ITTBAB at AK, although the Muppets is much tamer More please

[Lemap760]

I would have been out of there pretty quick with bees flying at me too.

[jimmymac]

You're off to a great start. Lookiing forward to the next installment

[DopeyGirl]

Great start, Kim! Your kids' reactions to Pirates 4D sounds much like DD's the first time we saw it last summer . . . and the time after that . . . and the first time we saw it this year . . .

I am curious to see how the crowds were the rest of the day! We're season pass holders and made the ginormous mistake of going up on Sunday morning. Waited in line in the car for 35 minutes (at 10:30) just to get to the parking entrance to get our receipt (since we don't have to pay for regular parking) then were shuffled off to the overflow parking clear down Hwy. 60 across from the brewery.

DD had an . . . accident . . . while waiting for the tram so we had to head back home, so we never did get inside, but judging from parking that day . . . it couldn't have been pretty. Hoping it's calmed down a bit since the weekend!

[TheThomasFam]

Originally Posted by DopeyGirl

I am curious to see how the crowds were the rest of the day!

The crowds were managable. You could tell that there were school field trips there but it was not bad. The woman who was making the funnel cakes said that Memorial Day was just insane.

Quick update for everyone: I guess my dad felt bad about being slow with the pics so we were able to get the pictures off of his digital camera so I will try to upload the pictures when I get home. I traveling back to North Carolina this afternoon.

[emtpej]

it will be nice to see the pics!

[TheThomasFam]

Quick Note: I'm trying to get some pics into the trip report but haven't figured out how to do it yet - bear with me.

Without further ado . . .

Moving right along . . .

So, after the movie, we decided to go see the beautiful Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales. I love those horses!! We walked through the stalls and met Marty and Alex, two Clydes. The mule that wanted to be a Clydesdale in the commercial is usually there but not today. So the kids said that they wanted to ride the Lil Clydes ride so we stopped so they could ride that.

After, we decided to keep walking instead of taking the train (Actually, I said “Let’s keep walking and not take the train yet.”) So we walked to Ireland. There were no rides in Ireland (At least not for my two) but that’s where they keep the animals. Ireland has two shows, one called “Emerald Beat” and the other called “Secrets of Castle O’Sullivan”. The Emerald Beat is Irish Dancers, Singers, and Musicians. Well, we walked past the theatre and saw all these people standing around but the first show of the day didn’t start till 1:15pm. I remember my dad and I saying something to each other and walking by all those people. Once I realized that all those people had on McDonalds shirts, I told my dad that McDonalds must have rented the theatre to have an employee meeting (remember this info, you’ll need it later.) So then we walked on to the other theatre where “Secrets of Castle O’Sullivan” was. This involves a little Leprechaun. We decided that since the Pirates movie didn’t go over very well, we would not continue to torture the kids.

Ah, the animals and wait a minute, who was that! . . .

So we proceed over to the animals. We saw these two beautiful birds, the first one I don’t remember what it was but then a TM brought out this beautiful owl. We stood there listening to the TM tell us about how big the owl was and that she was full grown, that she could take down a small deer (Wow!!). As I’m listening to the TM, I turned my head and whom do I see – wait a minute, was that – Ronald McDonald? Sure enough, Ronald McDonald was at BuschGardens and had just walked by. I got Jackson and Kerry’s attention so they could see him in person. We only got to see him, not talk to him.

We finished with the owl and walked over to where the wolves were. We only watched them for a minute because they were getting ready to be fed and I really didn’t want to see wolves eat.

The parrots and turtles were next. The parrots were all talking which was really fun. They were saying, “Hi” and “Bye” and “Hey there pretty girl”. Wait a minute, “Hey there pretty girl” What a fresh bird!! This really nice TM brought out a turtle into a grassy part of the area so Jackson and Kerry could pet it (She also brought the hand sanitizer too) some background on our family and turtles. DH, Jon hates turtles!! When he was a kid, this big snapping turtle crawled from the creek behind his house and stood guard in their driveway. Wish I had had a picture of this but I digress. Anyway, any time we can get a picture of a turtle, we do so to torture Jon. So we thought that taking a picture of Jackson and Kerry petting a turtle and enjoying it would be great!! I think I’m going to blow it up, frame it, and put it in his office so he can look at it always!!

[JaimeandChad]

Great start! Hurry back.

[bsblady01]

more please

[chezp]

Great start - I'm really enjoying this and looking forward to seeing some photos.

[TheThomasFam]

Well, I'm trying to get pictures upload to the TR but I'm having a hard time making them appear (right now they appear as a red X so as soon as I can get them to appear as pictures, I'll put them in) Here's the next installment. . .

“Mommy, we’re ready to do some stuff” and has a demon taken my daughter . . .

So after we look at the birds and turtles, Kerry and Jackson look at me and say, “Mommy, we’re ready to do some stuff.” I asked them what did they want to do – Land of the Dragons was their reply. Off to Land of the Dragons we went.

Since we didn’t want to walk all the back from where we came from, we took the skyride to the Land of the Dragons. The kids had never ridden on it before (it was not open the last time we went on it), I hadn’t ridden on it in years, and it was also something my parents could ride on. The skyride dropped us in Germany right next to Land of the Dragons.

Land of the Dragons has a water playground, a three-story treehouse with rope bridges and a gigantic slide. It also has four kiddie rides and it’s own kiddie show. We found a bench in some shade for my mom and my dad took Jackson over to the water playground and I took Kerry to the bathroom to change into her bathing suit. After I got her changed we were walking back to the LOTD when we passed by a funnel cake eatery – okay, mental note. I dropped Kerry off at the water playground with Jackson and my dad. As I walked back to my mom, I said to her, “Funnel Cake?” With lighted eyes , she said “How much money do you need?” So after a debate on how much powdered sugar should be on the funnel cake , I went to get it and some drinks.

After eating the wonderful (but apparently not enough powdered sugar I was told) funnel cake and watching the kids play in the water, Jackson said he was ready to go up in the treehouse. So Jackson dried off and he and my dad went to the treehouse. I went over and watched Kerry in the water playground.

This is when Kerry’s demonistic powers begin to appear. It started that she didn’t want to follow the TM’s instructions or my instructions (stay off the fence, don’t climb the rocks, don’t sit on the jets, don’t lay in the water, don’t drink the water). I ended her time in the water playground when she was climbing the fence. I grabbed her and carried her kicking and screaming over to where my mom was sitting. It took two of us to get her dried off. After she dried off, she decided to just sit on the ground and scream and yell. I tell ya – whoever said that 2’s were bad obviously didn’t get to the 3’s yet. Kerry at 2 was a piece of cake compared to Kerry at 3. So I gathered her clothes and took her to the bathroom to change.

Once we got back to the LOTD, my dad and Jackson had come back from the treehouse. We decided to go to Das Festhaus in Germany to eat lunch and watch the show (Sortof like Baergarten but not buffet) We got a seat and my dad stayed with Jackson and Kerry to watch the show and my mom and I went and got our lunch and the kid’s lunches. I got the half-rack of ribs with the German cole-slaw and German potato salad. My mom got the Turkey salad with Honey Mustard dressing and we got the kids the hot dog and chips kids meal (Side note – I have no food porn for this trip because one, I was not in charge of the camera only the video camera, and two, my parents, although knowing I look at the WDW food porn probably would not want their food shown)

So we get back to the table where my dad says that Kerry has been pushing him away from him. Not even one minute goes by that he tells us that when Kerry proceeds to push my mom. My mom had not settled on her side of the bench when Kerry pushed her so my mom goes falling backwards off the bench and lands on her butt . Before she falls all the way back on her back, my dad catches her. I called Kerry (it was a first, middle, and last name moment) over to sit beside me and she started to cry for several minutes. Once I got her settled and talked to her about pushing people, I was able to get both Jackson and Kerry to start eating their lunch. My dad came back with his lunch, the German Sampler with all these wursts, the German cole-slaw and German potato salad.

Opinons on our lunch – Mom said that the salad was really good but the Honey Mustard was alittle tart. I loved the ribs (should have gotten the full-rack) but only eat a few bites of the potato salad. My dad loved his sampler. Jackson and Kerry ate all of their hot dogs and most of the chips. I think it was safe to say that Kerry’s demon side must have been hungry because it did not rear its ugly head for the rest of the day.

For those wondering about the two goals – we hadn’t started on the big kids rides and I was managing the backpack very well.

[RobDVC]

So far, so good!

[TheThomasFam]

I'm not sure how this is going to turn out but here it goes!



I did it, Yeah!!!!!